Live from the Trial

The global independent auditing firm had been hired by the Senate to investigate whether three senators (Duffy, Patrick Brazeau and Mac Harb) actually lived in the places they declared were primary residences for expense purposes.

Wright, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former chief of staff, told Bayne, on his fourth day of cross-examination, “I didn’t meddle with any audit.”

Duffy is facing 31 charges of fraud, breach of trust and bribery. Three charges relate to his secret acceptance of a personal cheque from Wright to repay his disallowed expenses. Wright has not been charged and is a chief Crown witness in the case against Duffy.

Efforts by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to contact Deloitte in the midst of its work were part of a flurry of behind-the-scenes string-pulling in an effort to put a gloss on the star Conservative senator’s having to repay of $90,000 worth of expenses.

Like many of the frantic attempts to stage-manage Duffy’s expense scandal by Wright and his PMO and Senate colleagues, this one didn’t end well.

Bayne is unravelling the chain of events in an effort to portray Duffy as a victim forced to repay expenses he did not believe he legitimately owed, and the PMO as a puppet-master demanding Duffy put on a humble face and contritely repay because it would put a stop to what was becoming a daily parade of negative headlines for the Harper government.

Volumes of PMO emails introduced in court show Wright initially asked Senator David Tkachuk, head of a powerful Senate sub-committee regulating senators’ expenses, to approach Deloitte, a firm Wright described as a “client”, hired to conduct an investigation by its contractor, the Senate.

Wright told the court his goal was to have Deloitte withdraw any conclusions about Duffy’s prime residence on the grounds the issue was moot because Duffy had already announced he’d repay any money he owed.

Although Duffy at one point wanted to talk to the Deloitte auditors to make a case P.E.I. was his home, and he was entitled to claim expenses for occupying his Ottawa house, Wright discouraged him. Duffy’s then-lawyer, Janice Payne, then asked the Deloitte review be pulled as a condition of Duffy’s compliance.

After Tkachuk seemed unwilling to call off Deloitte, Wright turned to Conservative Senator Irving Gerstein. Gerstein had no role in the Senate subcommittee that commissioned Deloitte but was said who have a personal contact high-up at the auditing firm.

Wright replied, “It’s not true… I’m actually trying to get clarity,” maintaining he wanted Gerstein to urge Deloitte to talk to Tkachuk.

An email cited in court dated March 21, 2013 from PMO staffer Patrick Rogers to Wright as well as Harper’s lawyer Benjamin Perrin and his principal secretary Ray Novak, reports Gerstein’s discussion with Deloitte.

Deloitte wasn’t going to play. “Any repayments [by Duffy] were not going to change Deloitte’s conclusions,” Rogers said in his email.

However, it seemed Gerstein had managed to obtain a bit of information about what Deloitte would conclude. “However, they can’t reach a conclusion because Duffy’s lawyer hadn’t provided them with anything,” Rogers said.

Emails referred to by Bayne Monday showed Payne was prepared to cooperate with Deloitte but had been quashed by the PMO.

Bayne ripped into the spectacle of Wright, an exempt political staffer working for Harper, trying to alter a confidential report from a private firm commissioned by a supposedly independent Senate.

“You’re getting a report on it, before the public does, before the committee does. You’re getting leaked information. Do you agree you’re not supposed to have that?” Bayne demanded.

Wright replied he didn’t dwell on on the confidential nature of the report, but instead focused on his next task: getting Duffy to end his bid to be dropped from Deloitte’s findings.